Page 1813 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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culture, the way businesses think in Canberra, saw residents of the park dismissed as collateral damage in a robust asset management strategy.
People right across Canberra were shocked by Koomarri’s actions and disapprove of it. The general consensus is that Koomarri must have known that evictions would be the outcome but that they had hoped that they would not happen quite so soon. The only ethical position would have been to hand the park back to the government, rather than capitalising on it.
I turn to the intention of the new owner, Consolidated Builders Ltd, to evict all residents and cease operations of the Narrabundah Long Stay Caravan Park. The new owner bought the property with the intention of closing down the caravan park and evicting the residents. Many people seem to take the view that Mr Zivko of Consolidated Builders Ltd is a developer and that developers should work for their own interests alone. I do not accept that. Consolidated Builders chose to pursue this block of land. As I understand, it is not in financial difficulties with this course of action being its only route for survival. This was a business decision purely focused on making a profit by, presumably, sitting on a large block of land until the lease purpose clause could be changed. There are many of us in the community who believe that this does not justify the sacrificing of 100 homes.
Next is the ACT government’s commitment to a positive and sustainable outcome for the long-stay park residents and Koomarri’s preparedness to refund most of the sale price and work with the ACT government and Consolidated Builders Ltd to redress the situation. Since then, partly in response to the very strong resident and community-based campaign, the ACT government has made it very clear that it will work towards the only acceptable resolution of the issue, which is that the residents remain in their community on the present site. Koomarri has made the inevitable concession that it has absolutely done the wrong thing and is prepared to return the windfall profit. I hope its reputation can be recovered.
The next part of the motion calls on Consolidated Builders Ltd to walk away from this property deal, at no cost to itself, so that the park can be returned to public ownership. I do not get the problem that business people have in acknowledging the social impact of their decisions and then saying, “Sorry, we had better do something different instead.” Mr Zivko put out a statement arguing that he cares about people, particularly families, and does not want to cause unnecessary distress. Even so, he seems to feel compelled to follow through on a strategy that would do significant damage to those people and to the Canberra community.
Dr Rigmor Berg, in a successful action against a proposed development of a long-stay park near Gosford, argued successfully in the land and environment court that broad social impacts of the loss of community include the loss of close, supportive bonds between neighbours which greatly enhance the quality of life of its members, being likely to result in social isolation for many, with physical and mental health consequences, and loss of self-determination and security.
I do not accept the view that the new owner is only the meat in the sandwich. Mr Zivko knew what he planned to do. While I believe that he should not make untoward profits from this business venture, I do believe that he should not be out of pocket over the
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